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Another fairly common migrant from the north, throughout most of Costa Rica, is the Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus). I have recorded it here at home from early October to late March, although the October sighting is rather unusual, with most arrivals coming in November. I have not found one yet at the house this year but it has now arrived in numbers. All had the faint pink on the throat that is illustrated so well in Garrigues & Dean’s The Birds of Costa Rica (p. 347). John Beer’s file photos below are from Aquiares and from his garden in Santa Rosa respectively.

Immature male Rose-breasted Grosbeak at Aquiares; just a trace of pink on the breast

On this week’s excursion with John to Murcia, site of one of the major reasons for the demise, subsequent to a major tremor in 1991, of the San José-Limón railway line, we found several juvenile males between the village of Murcia and the location of the bridge over the Río Chiz. A similar juvenile male appeared at El Banco closer to home the next day. Adult males are indeed a splendid sight with the red gash on the throat that gives them their Spanish name (in Mexico at least) of Degollado (Throat Cut).

El Degollado, the adult male Rose-breasted Grosbeak

The railway bridge over the Río Chiz is now in total disrepair, but local resident and ex-railwayman Gerardo Rodríguez told us that some young men still risk the very dangerous crossing despite the huge drop down to the river below.

The path we followed still shows vestiges of the original railway lines. The habitat is farmland with considerable second growth and is to be highly recommended for birding. As can be seen from the list at the end of this post, we encountered no great rarities on this occasion but there was considerable movement and flowering poró attracted a few hummingbird species, most notable of which was the Long-billed Starthroat (Heliomaster longirostris). We had excellent close-up views of a male, though unfortunately it would not stay still for John’s camera.

Male Long-billed Starthroat at its favourite food, the red flowers of the poró.

This species, considered rare in the Caribbean, has been showing up in many locations in the Turrialba area this year. Notable absences were warblers, of which we recorded only one species, while the common oropendola here seems to be the Chestnut-headed Oropendola (Psarocolius wagleri), which is generally much harder to find than the ubiquitous Montezuma Oropendola (Psarocolius montezuma). Here is a Chestnut-headed from John’s collection, photographed at CATIE in Turrialba:

The Chestnut-headed Oropendola with its ivory bill and its trace of a crest at the back of the neck

An identification problem was posed by the bird in this final photo. We eventually determined it to be an Ochre-bellied Flycatcher (Mionectes oleagineus), a species that is rated as generally uncommon in this location of the Caribbean foothills: